Biology professor, student on award-winning team

Tammy Mildenstein, assistant professor of biology at Cornell College, and Kelsey King ’15 were part of a team that won a Distinguished Service Award this summer from the Society for Conservation Biology.

Mildenstein is a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List Committee, which studies the endangerment of mammals and then creates the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. This list, Mildenstein said, is the international gold standard for a species’ conservation status and is used by conservation biologists to determine research and funding priorities.

Mildenstein began work on the project before starting to work at Cornell, and, she said, the college has supported her as she continues to work with the Red List Committee. And last year she brought King, who worked for the biology department, into the project.

“Kelsey spent a large part of her work study hours helping me enter species account data,” Mildenstein said.

 

Mike Hoffmann, Senior Scientist to IUCN’s Species Survival Commission and Chair of the IUCN Red List Committee, accepted the award on behalf of the wider Red List community. The award recognizes individuals, groups, or institutions that have furthered the Society of Conservation Biology’s mission to advance the science and practice of conserving the Earth’s biological diversity.

“It is a welcome recognition of the extraordinary dedication shown by many, many thousands of conservation professionals who volunteer their knowledge, their data, and their time to create such an incredible resource,” Hoffman said. “A resource that is used to inform some of the most important decisions that affect the future of biodiversity.”